Sad you are not back at RailsConf 2011? Fear not, by the power vested in my camera that was duck-tapped to my broken tripod, I interviewed as many people as I could before my batteries ran out …

Is David Heinemeier Hansson planning to stop programming soon? What’s the secret of how Ruby on Rails got so big? How strong is the community and how will it be kept alive and growing for the next ten years?

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David Chelimsky is the lead developer and maintainer of Rspec, the behavior-driven development tool that’s the go-to for many a Rails project. He’s also author of ‘The RSpec Book’ and I was lucky enough to be able to ask him some questions about test driven development and its future.

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Gregory Brown is a past Ruby Hero circa 2010. Sounds cool right? Well if you want to elevate your Rails-fu to the next level he’s developed an online school with Jordan Byron called Ruby Mendicant University. Who is this aimed at? How’s it best to learn this stuff? How can I find out more?

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Steve is a newly minted Ruby Hero. He tells the story of how he took over the Hackety-Hack project from why the lucky stiff. What’s that you say? If you’re not in the know, it’s a great way to learn Ruby straight from your browser. Also Steve talks about native client programming on the desktop with shoes.

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Dr Nic talks about his plans for world domination and covers the main difficulties faced by the developers including how to pronounce DHH’s name. A fun conversation covering a wide swath of topics including the maturity of Rails, hosting, and we get to see the first video of an actual RailsConf garbage collector in the background half way through!

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Gregg Pollack had a pedagogical epiphany and now wants to create a team of the best technical screencasters in the world. He’s the founder and CTO of Rails Envy, well known for his great PC vs Mac spoof videos (check them out here) and has branched out into providing great educational tools for learning Ruby on Rails. Learn more in the video then check out his site www.codeschool.com

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What’s a conference without us real people? I grabbed attendees pretty much at random to get a feel for what they are working on, and outside of all the free tee-shirts and bags, find out what else they were taking away from the conference.

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Last but not least, here’s the great-great-great-grandfather of the killer-robots that will keep us for pets if we’re lucky. For those pedants out there, I’m defining “lucky” as “having the ability to program in the favorite language of the killer-robots, Ruby on Rails!”. Enjoy

I just got back from the world’s leading Rails conference, where I broke out my camera and interviewed till my batteries ran out! Great conversation with DHH discussing the story of how Rails got so big, if he plans to quit programming and how to keep the community stong and vibrant for the next ten years.

Also fun and informative discussions with many of the main speakers including Dr Nic, David Chelimsky, Gregg Pollack, Ruby Heros and a robot that spits out molten plastic. When the robots finally do take over at least we’ll know what their favorite language is!

Was an awesome event, great vibe and I look forward to getting the videos online so you can live some of the excitement yourself. Signup for Facebook and Twitter (@eyeandmindblog) to get notified on the latest uploads.

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About Eye & Mind

Eye & Mind is a blog about technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship. It has a combination of video interviews and traditional blog posts. Interviews are conducted by Stephen Robinson and the videos are produced by Diego Ferreyra.